Friday, December 18, 2009

Iraq insurgents hack Predator drones through SkyGrabber

Interesting news today, apparently unencrypted video feeds from the Predator drone has been downloaded by Iraqi insurgents/terrorists on the ground.

SkyGrabber, a $26.00 software that you use with any satellite dish, can give you a view of satellite feeds...designed mainly to listen in to video, images, and entertainment, it apparently was used to listen in to military communications. Ouch.

An embarrassing incident for the Pentagon, but unencrypted communications happens anywhere and everywhere -- from cell phones to satellite phones to emails to whatever. I'm just kinda shocked we didn't even encrypt it...

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

They could of inverted the video or removed sync(how old cable was scrambled)could of hidden encrypted data on lines 9 to 24 of video before scrambled no one would of never looked their for it( their video in the clear could of been fixed for cents), leaving the cameras or in the cameras. Cheap and still used the old networking.

The software might of been under 30 bucks but the near field receivers-scanners-freq counters for the interception of the data cost thousands and the military scrambles/encrypts what there using and blocks everything else except for the old pilots 170mhz emergency freqs used since nam at the current moment. Still used just updated the batteries in the old radios. Russians china pakistan most likely North Koreans (a little yellow cake and you want to rule the world) just found one missed hole in the loop and exploited it. When the video went from analog to digital after digital a simple crypto scheam would of kept prying eyes out. They can turn the encrytion back on gps any where in the world and use the same crypto for the video feed. A contractor just left a hole which im sure has been fixed with heads rolling.